Recently, electronic cigarettes have become popular as it provides an alternative to tobacco and cigar smoking. An electronic cigarette is a device that contains liquid containing nicotine that is then vaporized by the electronic cigarette to allow the user to have the sensation of smoking in public places and receive the nicotine buzz without the other harmful side effects of smoking a regular cigarette or cigar.
Most electronic cigarettes sold today have a tank that the user must manually refill the liquid in the tank. The liquid for the electronic cigarette is commonly known as eLiquid and contains nicotine and may also contain other ingredients including flavoring and the like. The manual filing of the liquid into the tank is messy and puts the user in contact with the messy/sticky, nicotine-containing eLiquid. While the eLiquid is not toxic as the normal level of exposure, a user must go undergo this manually refilling process frequently to use what is known as a top “open-tank” system. This manually refilling process invariably leaves residue on the fingers of the user and in the various tanks and battery systems that are part of the open-tank systems.
With these open-tank systems, the replacement of the atomizers (wicks and coils) when they burn out (about once per week) is complicated and requires practice or the assistance of a specialist. Further, for open-tank systems that have a tubular design (“tubular device designs”), the tubular device designs are clumsy, roll off of surfaces they are placed on and are not easily pocketable.
Most of these open-tank systems use an industry standard 510 connection to connect the tank containing the liquid to the mouthpiece. The standard 510 connection is a weak-point for attachment of tanks to the battery units. Furthermore, attaching the tank by screwing the tank onto the rest of the device is not the most efficient attachment method and the connection is easily broken if a user has a device in their pocket and sits on it, for example. In addition, this connection may leak liquid which can cause a significant mess such as when the electronic cigarette is stored in a bag during airline travel or when the electronic cigarette is being carried by the user.
In addition, the swapping of flavors of the eLiquid for open tank systems is difficult. Specifically, since a tank can only hold one flavored liquid at a time, a user must have several costly tanks to swap flavors or the user must dump out the old liquid, wash and clean the tank and then re-fill it. This means that being able to use various flavored eLiquid in an open-tank system is either costly or messy and time-consuming.
Some systems use a custom bottle that attaches to the bottom of the battery unit in order to avoid exposure by the user to the eLiquid. However, while this design makes it easier to swap flavors, these systems still require the user to manually replace atomizers.